Virtual universes (VUs) are rapidly becoming a popular part of today's culture. A VU is a computer-based simulated environment. Many VUs are represented using 3-D graphics and landscapes, and are populated by many thousands of users, known as “residents”. Often, the VU resembles the real world such as in terms of physics, places, and landscapes.
VUs are also known as metaverses and “3D Internet.” Some example VUs include: SECOND LIFE™, ENTROPIA UNIVERSE®, THE SIMS ONLINE™ and THERE™—as well as massively multiplayer online games such as EVERQUEST®, ULTIMA ONLINE™, LINEAGE® and WORLD OF WARCRAFT®. (SECOND LIFE is a trademark of Linden Research, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. ENTROPIA UNIVERSE is a registered trademark of MindArk PE AB in the United States, other countries, or both. THE SIMS ONLINE and ULTIMA ONLINE are trademarks of Electronic Arts, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. THERE is a trademark of Makena Technologies, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. EVERQUEST is a registered trademark of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. LINEAGE is a registered trademark of NCsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. WORLD OF WARCRAFT is a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both.)
A VU is intended for its residents to traverse, inhabit, and interact through the use of avatars. In operation, user(s) control the avatar(s). An avatar is a graphical representation selected by the user, often taking the form of a cartoon-like human or other figure. The user's account, upon which the user can build an avatar, is tied to an inventory of assets the user owns, such as, for example, clothing, weapons, artwork, furniture, virtual pets, houses, virtual vehicles, and landmarks, amongst other assets. A region is a virtual area of land within the VU, typically residing on a server's central processing unit (CPU). A user context includes a very broad range of attributes that describe the user, and which are relevant to their behavioral, search and other informational needs.
The data representation of an object or item in the VU is stored as information, e.g., as data or metadata. The object may be created by an object creator, e.g., a VU manager, a user, etc. In some VUs, larger objects are constructed of smaller objects, termed “prims” for primitive objects. These “prims” usually include boxes, prisms, spheres, cylinders, tori, tubes and/or rings. The “prims” may be rearranged, resized, rotated, twisted, tapered, dimpled and linked to create larger composite objects. The creator of such an object may then map a texture or multiple textures to the object. Texture mapping is a method of adding detail, surface texture, or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. When the object is to be rendered, this information is transmitted from the VU server to the client.
An inventory of assets comprises objects or items associated with the user's individual avatar or placed by them on virtual land they own or on public land. Such objects or items may have been created by the resident from prims, purchased, or obtained for free. Examples of objects include clothing, weapons, artwork, furniture, virtual pets, houses, virtual vehicles, and landmarks, amongst other objects. Assets, avatar(s), the environment, and everything else visually represented in the VU each comprise universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) (tied to geometric data distributed to user(s) as textual coordinates), textures (distributed to user(s) as graphics files), and effects data (rendered by the user's client according to the user's preference(s) and user's device capabilities).
Artifacts, which may be referred to as items or assets, may be used as fashion items or may provide the avatar with additional capabilities. Artifacts may be purchased, obtained as gifts, or obtained as a result of specific quests depending on the rules governing the VU. Furthermore, it is common to allow avatars to exchange artifacts either for free or as a result of a monetary transaction. Certain artifacts are highly prized, for example, because they enable specific functionality, or because they are fashionable. For example, there are individuals who design clothes to be worn by avatars. It is considered a virtual art form to design a piece of clothing that is attractive in low-resolution VUs.
Avatars typically interact in the VU using the known chat-room and instant message technology. In one aspect, to mimic the behavior of real life, when an avatar “speaks”, a text window appears on the user interface of the other avatars who are within “hearing range” (hearing range may vary depending on whether an avatar “speaks” normally, “whispers”, or “shouts”).
In the real world, a common form of advertising and marketing consists of distributing merchandise with company logos and/or names, slogans, etc. Such artifacts may include, for example, hats, T-shirts, mugs, pens, toys, etc.
However, the limited rendering capabilities of current VUs prevents this form of advertising/marketing from being effectively used in a VU. That is, presently, due to restricted computational capacity and networking resources, VUs render simplified versions of objects often eliding graphical details. Moreover, as a result of current limitations of graphics hardware and software, 3-D graphics representations with 2-D textures mapped onto the surfaces of 3-D objects often do not have sufficient detail and clarity. Additionally, even with excellent graphics, users often are not able to read small-sized text on moving objects under typical lighting and viewing conditions, and when the text may be obscured by intervening objects. Avatars generally have only prominent features rendered resulting in a cartoon-like appearance. Additionally, an avatar's wearable or otherwise portable artifacts, such as clothing, hats, jewels, bags, etcetera, often receive simplified rendering. Due to the rendering restrictions of VUs, it is difficult to advertise and market products in a virtual universe by placement of logos, slogans and company names on items that are either on or with an avatar.